The Silence. Joss Stirling

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       Chapter 7

       Jenny, One Year Ago

      Jenny hauled her bags and boxes up to her room one by one. There was no sign of Jonah when she would’ve welcomed the help. Maybe he only carried things in exchange for food? She didn’t even know which room he was in to knock on the door. Never mind: she was used to doing things alone. Hadn’t she decided she preferred it that way?

      Belongings safely ferried, she stood for a moment to take stock of her new kingdom. It was clean and neat – just as she liked, no, needed it to be. The light was fading but the view out front was unsullied by streetlights. A bold orange tinge flushed the horizon, indicating the busy heart of London just over the hill, but here it could almost still be the eighteenth century when the house was built. That’s if you ignored the cars and the planes winking by, lining up with the Thames to land at Heathrow.

      Pulling her duvet out of a box, she went to the bed to strip off the white lace counterpane. A bouquet of orange Californian poppies lay on the pillow. Petals fell off as she lifted it. Someone should tell the cleaner that poppies made terrible cut flowers. All she was left with was confetti and unattractive stubby heads on hairy stalks. She placed them in the bin, reminding herself to get rid of them before the next visit by the cleaner so as not to offend her.

      Odd though. Bridget hadn’t mentioned anything about a cleaner in her briefing on house rules. Jenny didn’t expect one but she should make it a priority to ask. She liked to know if someone was coming into her space so she could prepare.

      It didn’t take long to unpack. Her books went neatly onto a shelf by the fireplace, Maya Angelou, Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche, Jane Austen and Vikram Seth all snuggled together. Growing up, she’d craved culture of all sorts – theatre, literature, but mostly music. She’d been teased for it as a child as other kids didn’t get it; now she found there were far more of her tribe out there than she expected, people like Louis. That was the best thing about adulthood: not having to apologise for your taste. Next was her mini speaker and docking station. She thumbed on Stravinsky’s Petrushka on her phone as she had to play that piece the following day. Shaking out her clothes, which were heavy on the black skirts and shirts, light on anything pastel, she hung them in the white wardrobe. That amused her: it was shaped like the one that danced in the The Beauty and the Beast film. She waltzed a few steps with one of her long dresses and laughed, before putting it away. Underwear hid itself in the top drawer of the dresser – it didn’t look fine enough for this place. Perhaps she’d buy herself some silky lingerie with her savings? Could she even consider dating again? Harry’s rejection had scared her off men for months. She’d foolishly thought he was the one, her childhood sweetheart. Her mum had warned her not to fall for her own fantasies about the relationship. Nikki Groves had done that with Jenny’s father and ended up a single mum in Harlow.

      Mum would love it here.

      And now the bathroom. Jenny swept into it in manner gently mocking of Bridget’s prima ballerina style. She emptied her toiletries into the vanity unit, leaving out on the ledge her favourite perfume, a tub of moisturiser and her seven-day pill dispenser. The plastic compartmented box looked ugly compared to everything else. She’d have to see if she could find an antique one on one of the junkeroo stalls in Greenwich market. She ran the tap. With a few groans and splutters it eventually ran warm, then scorching hot. Nothing wrong with Bridget’s boiler. She added some cold and washed her face thoroughly, removing all trace of makeup. She was going to be happy here, she could just tell.

      Dabbing her face dry, she went back into her bedroom, clicked off the music and took her violin out of its case to tune it. A little thrill ran through her. Though she held the instrument for hours each day, she still got that shiver of anticipation, like the wonder of first love, when she knew what they were about to do together. An ocean of classical music gently lapped before her mind’s eye: everything from the storms of Beethoven to the silences of Arvo Pärt. The violin brought it all within her reach. They would have to wait though because she really needed to practice for tomorrow. Would that disturb anyone? It was bound to annoy Bridget and Jonah if they were having an early night. The snug? Was that far enough away from the bedrooms? Taking her music and folding stand in one hand, the violin and bow in the other, she went downstairs and set up the score for the concert. Her fingering for the opening scene still wasn’t right. She loved the Russian folk tunes that weaved in and out of the composition but she hadn’t quite captured the spirit of them. Violin loose at her side, she closed her eyes for moment and breathed to ease the tension in her back muscles. She tried to summon up her impressions of Tsarist Russia: bright peasant clothes, long winters, furs, puppet shows, dancing bears, sleigh rides. Ready now, she set the violin in its notch under her chin, ignoring СКАЧАТЬ